Tag: Joe Lauzon

According to a Sherdog report published yesterday, UFC lightweight contenders George Sotiropoulos (13-2, 6-0 UFC) and Joe Lauzon (19-5, 6-2 UFC) will meet in a pivotal matchup at UFC 123 (November 20th, Auburn Hills). Riding a six-fight win streak including decision victories this year over Kurt Pellegrino and Joe Stevenson, Sotiropoulos would move very close to title contention with an impressive win over Lauzon. The fight would come less than three months after Lauzon’s recent destruction of Gabe Ruediger at UFC 118, which helped him rebound from a lopsided decision loss against Sam Stout at UFC 108.

You know how it goes in MMA circles: When two guys have beef they settle it with a 15-minute therapy session inside the cage. Next thing you know, problem solved. Hugs and high-fives all around. It’s pretty much the best formula we know of for conflict resolution that doesn’t involve some bullshit like talking or mutual understanding or compromise. Hence, those terrible “Fighting Solves Everything” T-shirts you see around sometimes.

Gabe Ruediger (17-5) spent years developing a solid reputation as a talented submission fighter, racking up an impressive record and finally reaching the UFC. Then, with a loss in his debut and an embarrassing short-lived stint on The Ultimate Fighter 5, which saw him get KO’d by a scale and not an opponent, he saw it disintegrate in just a few months’ time.

That was in 2006. Since that time, Ruediger has had neck surgery, switched up teams, won and finished his last six fights, and has now found himself back in the UFC as he steps in for an injured Terry Etim to face another TUF 5 vet, Joe Lauzon. Gabe talks with CagePotato about how he survived becoming a laughing-stock and why he thinks Joe Lauzon is a “good kid,” but still wants to kick his ass.

CAGEPOTATO.COM: Gabe, you are filling in on short notice for Terry Etim to fight Joe Lauzon. The two of you, as well as his younger brother Dan, have been talking back and forth with each other for years. How did this fight finally come about?GABE RUEDIGER: [UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva approached us after my last fight and said that he wanted to bring me back but that it was hard to find a proper place for me with the lightweight division being so deep. They were unsure of what to do with me and wanted to give me a fight if they could find a really good matchup for me in terms of it being compelling. But I was in a good position at that time because all the major organizations were interested in me so I understood and was fine with that. When Terry Etim had to pull out of the fight with Joe and they called me I was more than thrilled and I think Joe was more than thrilled. The fight has a good back story to it.

When Dan Lauzon steps into the Octagon at UFC 114 on May 29th — where he’s scheduled to face TUF 8 winner Efrain Escudero — he will do so without three longtime coaches in his corner. Due to a dispute over Dan’s commitment to training, his brother Joe as well as his trainers Joe Pomfret and Steve Maze will not be traveling to the fight in Las Vegas from their home base in Bridgewater. As the story goes, Dan was given an ultimatum a month ago to shape up and start training 10-11 times per week; when he didn’t, his team broke ties with him. Dan first went public with the story earlier this week, telling the Boston Herald:

"I don’t really know what I did to deserve this. I wouldn’t do that to anybody. I wouldn’t do that to my brother, I wouldn’t do that to anyone in my gym. It’s not right…In my eyes, I was doing everything right. I was making it to the gym; I was training hard two times a day. I was doing everything right. I was completely blown away…

Joe Pomfret is somebody I look at like a father, and he is going to do this to me? You’re going to tell me you can’t (work my corner) and you’re sending me out to Vegas alone for one of my biggest fights? I was completely hurt by it, especially my brother Joe. I don’t think anybody would ever do that to their brother. I can’t think of anyone else that would ever do that to their brother and just tell them, ‘Hey, you’re on your own.’”

("The creepy guy behind the ring? Don’t worry Rachelle, that’s just James McSweeney. He’ll probably ask you for a lock of your hair before you leave, but he’s cool." / Photo courtesy of twitter.com/nathanmarquardt)

Chris Lytle‘s $50,000 Submission of the Night bonus at UFC 110 represented his seventh UFC performance bonus in his last eight fights, which made us wonder: Does that make him the #1 bonus-collector on the UFC’s roster? And who else is in the running? So, with the help of the UG and Wikipedia, we compiled a ranking of the UFC’s top performance bonus leaders, based on available information. When possible, we added up the grand totals of the fighters’ pay-bumps, though the amounts of these bonuses weren’t consistently reported before UFC 70.

(Come on, Dan — how many times did we go over the inverted-Colemura escape in training? Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Not only did Rashad Evans‘s $375,000 paycheck from UFC 108 eat up a hefty 36% of the event’s total disclosed payroll — $1,043,000, including end-of-night bonuses — Sugar was also the only fighter to earn six figures on Saturday night. Considering there were no other major UFC stars on the card due to The Curse of ’09, it makes sense; hopefully Evans bought at least one round at the afterparty. Full UFC 108 salary figures are below, courtesy of MMA Junkie:

– Submission of the Night:Cole Miller, for his inverted triangle on Dan Lauzon; I know it’s early, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing that one on "Best of 2010" lists.

– Fight of the Night:Sam Stout and Joe Lauzon. After suffering through Lauzon’s takedowns and elbows in the opening minutes, Stout put on the striking performance of his life en route to a lopsided decision.

Joe Lauzon (17-4) has held many roles throughout his 25 years — college student, 9-5er, web designer, coach, business owner — but above all else, he’s always been a fighter at heart. So when doctors told Joe he would have to sit out for at least a year after a surgery to repair a torn ACL, he took on the challenge the same way he approaches every endeavor — he trained for a fight.

“In training camp I’m absolutely miserable between doing all our rounds of sparring and cardio and I focused on my knee rehab the same way," explained the rising UFC lightweight, who has won five of his six official Octagon appearances.

"The place I did my rehab had a mix of people, young and old, and most just go through their exercises and don’t work up a sweat. I had to change my shirt just to drive home because I was soaking wet from pushing it. The place where I did my therapy was also in a gym so there were people there for other reasons than to rehab. My great physical therapist, Chris, pushed me and I progressed so fast that it got to the point where people were coming in thinking that I was in there for something else, like I was already in training camp for a fight, not knowing I had just had ACL reconstruction. I could have taken an easier approach to it but doing it that way really made a difference.”

It certainly appears that way. Based on what his doctors initially told him, Lauzon had planned for a March 2010 return to the cage, but he’s a few months ahead of schedule, fighting Sam Stout (15-5-1) Saturday night at UFC 108.